Why Jane Austen?
by neverlate
Summary: An essay type paper on why I believe Jane Austen's books have survived the years.
1. Chapter 1

Every day kids ask why, in fact it is probably the most asked question in the world. Why did you do that? Why does that work that way? It's not only kids either, although they are the ones that we blame for most of those questions. Personally, one of the topics that I ask why about the most is the classics. I mean why are some books; and even movies, I know that there are some of you about to put this away hearing that, but it is true regardless, hear me out; considered classics, where there are others that seem to be just as good, that just aren't. Believe me when I say that I truly understand that this is a very large topic, so being me, and being female (Let's admit it ladies.) I'd like to focus mostly on Jane Austin.

What is it that makes Jane Austin a classic? The obvious answer is that Mr. Darcy is so, swoon… but let's really think about it does one character, or even lots of them, being every girl's dream guy really make it a classic? On my part the answer was a very decided no. I mean that as true as it is that Mr. Darcy is so passionately lovable, if all that was needed was a good character then I can think of a million books off the top of my head that would be classics, but they aren't, at least not in the way that we all know Pride and Prejudice. On that note, if it were just Mr. Darcy who was popular then what about her other books many of which have loser heroes, what about them? Honestly consider that idea for a minute before you read on.

Ok minute over. When I honestly thought about it I realized that the answer for me was that the characters in Jane Austin's books all remind me of people that I know. I mean, sure I might not know a Mr. Darcy, Kudos to you if you do, (That, and can I please date him.) but all of us probably know a Charlotte Lucas, an Elizabeth Elliot, a Miss Bates, or a Marianne Dashwood. Maybe we see these characters in ourselves. I can personally say, that I even know a Mrs. Bennett. Ok, maybe I don't know a lady who is only interested in marrying her daughters off to rich men, but I do know a lady who has many of these ideas.

Who is Mrs. Bennett, and why is it that I can say that I know a version of her. Mrs. Bennett is a woman who married someone because she thought, much along the lines of Charlotte Lucas, that she needed someone to take care of her; much along the lines of her daughter Lydia she probably thought that she loved the man, and though they say in Pride and Prejudice that they are ill suited for each other they never say that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett do not love each other in their own weird twisted sort of way. What is also interesting is that in Mrs. Bennett you see a woman who is constantly worried about the future. All the stability that she knows could be taken away from her at any moment. If that were to happen then she would have nothing left. Upon the death of her husband she could be thrown out of her home, have her money taken away, and be left to be cared for by relatives. How is she to remedy this, she wants her daughters to marry rich men so that they will not have to worry the same way that she does. She wants Lizzy to marry Mr. Collins because if she does, not only does Lizzy no longer have to worry, but then her own worries are done away with as well. Is this selfish, probably, but it is also there because this is the only life that she has ever known. Mrs. Bennett is a loud woman, but in many ways that is the fault of her husband, the only time that he gives her attention is when she is loudly demanding it, which is what leads her to act that way so often.

Why is it that I can say that I know at least one woman who reminds me of Mrs. Bennett? The answer would be simply that I know of a woman whose remarks have made her daughter feel so pressured to get married that it has made the girl awkward around men. I also know a woman (actually several women and some men as well who seem to think that the only way in which you can be happy is to be married. (Let's forget the fact that there are millions of people who are perfectly happy unmarried in the profession of their choice) Like Mrs. Bennett's children, in many ways these people embarrass me, but like Elizabeth I wouldn't want some random stranger to come in and tear them apart, whether what they said was true or not. Let's move on to another character and how I think that they could remind us of people that we might know.

Charlotte Lucas is one of those women who are tired of being alone and being a burden. She's a single young woman who lives with her parents. Charlotte also feels that she contributes nothing to their lives that they would not have without her. Basically, she wants someone who seems to genuinely need her around, and with whom, even in the smallest sense she gets this sense of companionship. She thinks that by having someone she will feel better about who she is. This isn't true, but in her mind, it is. She dreads being alone and a burden on her family for the rest of her life. Her options, as an unmarried woman in that time-period were being shunted from home to home or being left to the lonely life that a governess would have had. (In the days of Jane Austin this was the only honorable job that a young woman could have.) Regardless of this there are many women that I know who have trapped themselves in jobs that they don't enjoy. They, rather than seeing that they merely need a new job, think that the only way to get out of the one they have is to get married, and claim that's the reason for leaving, regardless of who they are marrying, or why.

In a way it is possible to say that Charlotte is a product of her times, but in other ways there is a bit of Charlotte in all of us. She is a woman who did what she was expected to do, no matter what it meant to her personally. She married Mr. Collins because that is what was expected of her. In the time of Jane Austin, it was considered a disgrace for a woman to work, and any young gently bred woman was either married to anyone who wanted her, or she became a burden on her family for the rest of her days. While it was a disgrace for a woman to work, it also was a disgrace for her to live alone. Thus, many families were worried that if they were forced to care for a spinster, not only would they be out monetarily, but they also would look bad in the eyes of other families. With this in mind, it becomes more interesting to say that we all have a pinch of Charlotte in us. Many of us do what is expected of us by the society that we live in. Whether that society expects us as teens to party or it expects us to be get proper jobs with a college education, in many ways we live up to that ideal that has been placed before us. How many people in the world have the job that they do because it is a well-paying respectable job? In my opinion that is the number of people who are the Charlotte Lucas' of the world.

As a contrast to Charlotte, we have Elizabeth. She is Charlotte's best friend, but at the same time they have different ideals, because even though they grew up on the same time, they were raised in drastically circumstances. The concept of Elizabeth that we get in Pride and Prejudice is that she, barring a university education, which would have been forbidden at the time, she was educated more as a male for that time-period would have been than a female. The book implies that she was educated mostly by her father, who valued her mind, but because she was educated by her father, he gave her the education that he had received, the education of a gentleman. If the family had a governess, she would have been solely in charge of the children's education, so that they would be proficient in what was expected of them. What made the life of a governess lonely is that since they oversaw the education of the children the post was primarily a long-term post. Dealing with the family on an everyday basis, and on close terms, they almost became part of the family, but they were still the paid help, and as such were not a part of the family. This may seem like a tangent, but it isn't. What I am trying to day is that since Elizabeth did not have a governess she grew up with many notions that were considered radical for the time-period. She believed that you should not marry someone whom you do not love and respect. During a time that emphasized marrying for comfort and money, this opinion is quite strange, where did she get these ideas? As I said, she was educated by her father, and when you consider the type of marriage that Mr. Bennett had it does not shock me that she was taught to marry for love. Mr. Bennett probably did not realize that he was teaching her these things, but he would most likely have said many things unconsciously to an impressionable young mind, and she would have taken those thoughts, and deciphered them in a purely feminine way.


	2. Chapter 2

Contrary to both the character of Elizabeth and Charlotte is the character of Jane. She is what Austen seems to believe is the perfect woman of the times. Moderately uneducated, docile, beautiful, in short, she is the perfect bride minus one thing, her fortune. What is interesting about the character of Jane is that she thinks ill of nobody, and that includes herself. She is a person who seems to have no problems with self-esteem, while at the same time seeming to have no issues with pride. While this denotes a singular character, it is also impossible. The only fault that Jane seems to have is that she is shy, and yet that shyness does not hinder her from approaching Mr. Bingley, nor does she seem uncomfortable in company, both of these being the marks of someone who is either introverted, or shy. Is it possible then to know a Jane? I believe that it is possible to know someone who appears to be Jane, but Jane herself is an impossible Character. It would imply someone who's only fault is naivety, and in my opinion that doesn't exist. The reason that Jane is the favorite of Mrs. Bennet is that she does nothing wrong, she does what her mother wants her to do, even to falling in love with the right guy, but is perfection ever easy to live with? If Jane is the perfect character then one of the most imperfect is Lydia, who is also a favorite of Mrs. Bennet. Why is that?

Knowing my own Mrs. Bennet, I would have to day that the answer to that question is probably two-fold. She is the youngest, the baby of the family; and she is most likely the most like the say that Mrs. Bennet remembers herself. Jane Austen implies that Mrs. Bennet was unable for some reason to have children after Lydia, whether that is due to complications with birth, or her age we are not told, however as the last child, and the baby of the family we know that Lydia would be spoiled. It is the case quite often that if the mother knows that a child will be her last, she treats the child as a baby for many years after the child has grown up, indulging the child as she knows that she won't have a chance to ever again. It is this concept that shows part of the mindset of Lydia. The other half of Lydia's character is that she is what Mrs. Bennet wishes she still could be. She is young, active, attractive, and seemingly doted upon by all of the young redcoats in the area. In my opinion Mrs. Bennet is a woman who married young and found herself trapped into a marriage of convenience for money where she was not valued. She lives vicariously through her youngest daughter who she allows to do what she would have done if she had gotten the chance. Outside of this spoiled child who is living in her mother's shadow, who is Lydia? She like her sister Elizabeth is a woman outside of her time, she is independent to a fault, she is a flirt, but she never means any harm to anyone. She is spoiled, yes, but she is no different than any other spoiled entitled child. Given a chance she eventually would have grown up to be a good adult, if properly restrained, but in the time period she was placed she is a woman with no chance.

In Pride and Prejudice there is one more character outside of her time, that is Mary Bennet. She is the type of woman who would in modern times eventually be a professor or a scholar of some sort, respected for her ideas. The type of woman who would probably end up writing resource books. She is a true introvert with a low self-esteem who hates the corner that she has been tossed into. She is constantly told that she is a disappointment to her family. She is not attractive enough for her mother, and she is mocked by her father. She is slow of word and thought, but the things that she does think are deep thoughts. She is the type of person who is probably better off writing her ideas than she is saying them. The type of person who writes the next great philosophical work, and sounds like an idiot when she tries to carry on a conversation. In the time of Austen however, the idea of a woman even knowing philosophy was considered to be scandalous and bluestocking, something that a young woman would avoid if she wanted to ever marry, and I believe that in her heart of hearts that Mary Bennet really does wish to marry. Why would she wish to marry if she finds it hard to even speak to people? Like anyone else in the world she wants love, and because she cannot find it from her parents, it is only natural that she would search for it elsewhere. She would be the best possible wife for any man who would look past her awkwardness.

The last Bennet woman in the family is the one most often forgotten, Katherine, or Kitty, Bennet. Kitty Bennet is the one character from Pride and Prejudice who is given virtually no personality. The second youngest of the Bennet sisters is generally described as basically being a woman in the shadow of her sister Lydia. She is a weak-minded person who is lead around by her sister, but if you look deeper it is apparent that she is as starved for attention as her sister Mary. She is as ignored as Mary, but she has an entirely different response. She sees how Mary is treated by their parents; and she, being the timid person that she is, is afraid of getting the same results herself. What is her response to this then? She looks to the favorite of her mother, and she imitates her. She is a delicate soul who would follow the first person who showed her attention and love, merely because she is so desperate for the love that her parents deny her. She is too young to join her older sisters, Elizabeth and Jane, because whereas they would see her as a silly young child, she wants to be seen as an adult, so she turns to the one place where she gets attention, Lydia. It is a silent plea, but it goes unheeded by her family, because they do not realize that there is any neglect. They are so contained in their own ideas of life that they fail to see anything else. Kitty is essentially any one of a number of children who are trying to find out where they fit in in the grand scheme of the family dynamics. The middle child who wants to be seen as an older kid, but who seems to be stuck in the firm place of little kid, and who is fighting that perception of itself.

Mr. Bennet is the last of the immediate Bennet family up for perusal, and in my opinion, he is the true reason why everyone else in the book is made to suffer. He is a man who refuses to take on the responsibilities that he has been given. He is essentially a couch potato. In the modern world he would be the man who ignored his family for sports, of books, or anything else that he may be interested in. In the time of Jane Austen, it was the responsibility of the head of the family to ensure the good behavior of not only his children, but of every person in his household, and yet Mr. Bennet allows his wife and children to run around in society unprotected from anyone who might want to take advantage of them. He visibly and publicly mocks his wife, and undermines her authority to the point where even her own children think lowly of her. He claims to love his children, but he refuses to allow them anything which would help them secure their future without fear, and when in the end this attitude really does publicly harm his entire family, he does nothing to change the outcome of years of laziness. If ever in my opinion Jane Austen wrote a truly evil character, it was him. He is a typical case wherein doing nothing is just as bad as doing wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for all of my followers who are receiving this notification that I have posted a new chapter, the truth of the matter is that I noticed some formatting errors and decided to change them to make the story easier to read. Thank you all for your patience.**

Mr. Bennet is a bod parent in ways which Mrs. Bennet cannot aspire to. I know that there are many people who would disagree with this sentiment, but the proof of this is written into the text and cultural references of Pride and Prejudice for those who are willing to look deeply and analytically at the words rather than skimming the lines as part of a greater story. Whereas the faults of Mrs. Bennet may be ascribed to ignorance and motherly concern, Jane Austen points out specifically in the beginning lines of the book that Mr. Bennet is a well born, well educated, and highly intelligent man; showing that to whatever we ascribe his parenting problems they may not be ascribed to ignorance .He knows what is best for his family and yet refuses to do what is right due to nothing other than his own laziness and fear of confrontation. He claims to love his children yet rather than instructing them and showing them affection, he mocks and ridicules them. He knows that the schemes of his ignorant wife may pose a threat to the health and well being of his children, and yet he does nothing to stop these schemes, leading to both the illness of Jane, and the elopement of Lydia. Although some might say that the blame for these instances should rest on the shoulders of Mrs. Bennet, it is necessary to note that especially during this time period the father was the head of the house and as such it was his duty to protect and control his wife and children, a chore which Mr. Bennet failed drastically. Furthermore, a man protects that which he loves and though we might wish to believe that he loves his children and wife never once in the entire text does he take the time to protect them. This begs us to consider, is it really Mrs. Bennet, the woman who only wanted what she thought was best for her children despite how she showed it, who is to be blamed; or her husband, a man who neglected and ridiculed his family from what may be seen as merely laziness and selfishness?

The study of Mr. Bennet leads us rather impressively into the study of his cousin Mr. Collins. It may be that you think that such a man could not exist in a normal life, and I own that having met with not a small number of similar men, they are both rare and odd, though they are neither so rare or so odd as they might seem. So, who is Mr. Collins? He is a man who by nature believes himself to be the best of men, and by both manner and training believes that he owes homage to anyone who can offer him a rise in life. The way that he acts throughout the novel leads us to believe that he grew up in relative poverty and yet always having the hope of something better before his eyes. He probably was the awkward child in school who didn't have any friends, and it is likely that he was bullied without knowing it by people who he thought were being his friends. He is finally able to realize his dream, but he is placed under the finger of a woman who wishes to rule his every action. He is a ridiculous character, and yet in his own way he is a tragic character. He is a man despised, and yet it is doubtful that he even realizes how he is despised or why. He believes that there are those who look up to him and see him as an authority, and yet this is not so. He is like the child who believes that those who are picking on him are his friends. This is what makes him the finest example of an everyday tragedy, in some ways we can all relate to him, because most of us have been there.

Mr. Collins has one thing in common with the supposed hero of the story in that they both propose to the same woman; and she refuses them both, only initially so in the case of Mr. Darcy, and yet still initially so. In the case of both men they believe that no matter how they ask Elizabeth to marry them she should, and indeed would, accept merely because they asked. This may seem as if it a practice mostly based in the regency period, and yet I am sure that we all know of people who have derogatorily asked us out on a date and yet they still expected a positive response. The reasons during the time period of Jane Austen would be similar to those of people today. These reasons being that they see the girl as being someone who needs them for some unspecified reason (usually being financial reasons or "protection"). Such men usually know their prey and they get the response that they expected other times they get Elizabeth Bennet. To be fair to both of these men they had good reason based upon the expectations of the time, and those of the station that she had been brought up in to expect a positive response and this is why both men were both shocked and less than complementary when they were refused. Due to the expectations of the time period as a female with no dowry she was expected to marry the first man who asked her so that she and her sisters would not be left destitute at the time of her fathers death, that she did not do so would have been scandalous to the women of the time period.


	4. Chapter 4

Mr. Darcy is to me the perfect picture of what Mr. Bennet should be, he does what is necessary in order to keep his family and friends safe even if these decisions are not always the best decisions that could, or even should be made. He is a young man who should have never needed to face the issues that he faced so early on in life. He has been raising his sister for at least 5 years since the death of his father and trying to do the best he can raising a young girl when he himself is still in need of assistance in trying to learn about life. He has been betrayed by his childhood friend and forced to confront the man who has betrayed him on numerous occasions during which this man has mocked him. He has gone from what would have been considered a relatively normal marriage prospect due to the fact that he was merely the heir to being one of the most eligible men on the market. He has been fawned over by every female who he has come into contact with, and it is more than likely that he has been hunted by women to the point that they have tried to compromise him so that he would be forced to marry them. He is a naturally introverted man who does not enjoy company and yet is still so devoted to his friend that he is willing to go into an unknown society and help his friend to settle in. Does he do this in the most sensible way, I would say that it is obvious that he does not. Due to his own self-consciousness he is unable to make a positive first impression which then colors the opinions of everyone in the area for the entire time that he resides there. Is he perfect? No, but what he is then is a man who tries his hardest and works for the results that he wants. When he is refused by the woman who he proposed to the first thing that he does after explaining himself is trying to improve himself and to make himself a better man. In general, I think that is what is so alluring about Mr. Darcy is that he is not a perfect man, but he is a good man who tries to improve himself. We as people do not want our characters to be perfect because then they are not real, and we want characters that we can relate to. We are not perfect and so they may not be. The simple draw of Mr. Darcy is that he is humanly prone to error and also humanly prone to improvement. He is a man who stands up for what he believes whether that belief is right or not, and yet is not bullheaded enough to retain an opinion when that is proven to be incorrect. Ultimately as a Pride and Prejudice nerd I could talk about Mr. Darcy and his draw ad nauseum but as he is not the only character who leads to the success of the novel, I will try to contain myself to this description.

Mr. Bingley is the best friend of Mr. Darcy and they both marry into the same family and yet as Jane Austen likes to point out two men could not be more different. Whereas Darcy is lovably flawed and yet trying to improve Bingley is flawed and yet does not see these flaws as being a problem or something to be improved, and this is the problem that keeps him from being the man that Darcy is. Mr. Bingley is a character who does not try and yet he gets a happy ending. He is the man makes the girl fall in love with him, who deserts the girl, and then she accepts him back as if nothing had happened. Jane Austen likes to act as if the story of Jane and Bingley was a love story but is it really? Neither of the participants in the marriage have any resolve and there is no true love there. He was more willing to trust his friend than he was himself when it came to the woman who he loved, knowing that no matter how closely his friend had been watching the girl he would not have the same understanding of her character that Bingley himself would have. He then trusted his friend again when the friend, who to any other observer was obviously flawed, told him that he was wrong, and the girl really did love him. It is as if he is a man with no mind of his own. He is manipulated by his sister to do his every whim, and yet does not even realize that he is being manipulated. He then marries a woman who very similar to himself is easily persuadable and who has no resolve as is evidenced by the fact that she accepts back the man who had hurt her so drastically merely because she "loved" him. Love does not mean that you forgive and forget every mistake that the other person has made, but rather that you forgive them and give them a chance to atone from their mistakes and prove that they have changed, becoming a better person. This is what is meant by love makes better people of us all. Forgiving as Jane and Bingley are want to do does not make better people but rather enables them to continue in their past mistakes and sins making them even more drastically flawed. This is not love but merely passion and attraction. Bingley then is a flawed man who does not try to overcome his flaws, and this is why we as humans cannot admire him in the same way that we admire Darcy, indeed if we admire him at all.

Speaking of Mr. Bingley leads us to the rather dubious pleasure of talking about Miss Bingley, his sister. She is the female version of Mr. Darcy and yet unlike him in the novel she does not repent. One thing that I would like to point out in terms of Miss Bingley however is her age, although most people tend to believe that she is approaching the age of 24 for those who read into the book more deeply it is interesting to note that Mr. Bingley was 22 years old and that Miss Caroline Bingley was his younger sister making her at most the same age as Elizabeth Bennet. So then at the young age she really is rather than the more advanced age that most people assume she is. What is the character of young Miss Bingley? She is a young miss who is in love with her brother's best friend. She is in love with a man who refuses to even notice her existence. At this point it might be questioned how do we know that she is in love with him? Judging by the fact that she is horrified by the early date of Lydia leaving the school room we can guess that she probably did not do so until she was closer to the age of 18, and this tells us that she has only been in society for around 2-3 years. When you take into account the close friendship between her brother and Mr. Darcy it is possible to assume that Mr. Darcy was one of the first men who she met when leaving the school room. We often form a romantic fantasy around the firs person who is relatively attractive who helps us when we are going through a difficult time, as she would have been at that time of her life. She then is given the opportunity of a lifetime when they are to stay in the same house together, and she is probably hoping that he will finally see her as more than his friends sister, and yet rather than paying attention to her he ignores her for another girl. Is it any wonder that she became catty to the person who had stolen the man who she saw as being hers? Which woman would look at another woman who had the attentions of a man we wanted and then not treat her badly indeed like Miss Bingley we would then try to do all in our power to remove him from the influence of this other woman? We would try to find any way to make ourselves seem better while making her look worse, some of us more than others but in any case usually the amount that we would try to degrade her would be in direct relation to the amount of desperation that we felt when it came to how much we wanted the man. In this light is she then a villain or is she a victim of circumstance?


	5. Chapter 5

Having covered the character of Caroline Bingley I would like to take just a few moments to discuss her sister and brother in law, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. The Hurst are people of fashion but not sense according to Jane Austen, meaning that they were both probably fairly attractive people who liked decent company and fashionable pursuits. Mr. Hurst was probably one of those men who before marriage was one of the moderately eligible young men who were on the marriage mart, neither very rich nor very poor. It is likely that due to the fact that he and his wife prefer to live with her brother that his father is probably still alive. How can I make that assumption, well due to the aspirations of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley it is unlikely that he is from anything but the landed gentry, add this to the fact that Jane Austen was very specific about pointing out when one was from trade it leads us to assume that he was not, thus he was landed. Add this to the fact that he is not staying on his own estate, but rather he and his wife follow Bingley into Hertfordshire where they make it obvious that they are not content. If they had another place where they could go and set up their own house they would have gone there. Leading me to believe that they were either not welcome on Hurst's' estate or that his estate was not large enough or in well enough repair to accommodate them. Considering the fact that Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley mock Mr. Bennet for the state of his estate it is unlikely that the estate is small or in disrepair, thus we must assume that they are not welcome on the estate for some reason. It cannot be something scandalous like his parents not approving of his wife or else they could no longer be people of fashion, so then it must be that his parents are alive and so they chose to go not home in order to keep the peace in some sort of way and take it from someone who lives as an adult in the home of their parent, it is not a comfortable situation for either the parent or the child, and so it is something that comfort-loving Mr. and Mrs. would wish to avoid. This is probably the reason why they are living with Mr. Bingley.  
Having covered most of the major characters it is now time to discuss what are considered to be the two villains of the story, Lady Catherine DeBourgh, and Mr. Wickham. I would like to start with the lesser, in my opinion, of the two villains, Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine is the type of person who is used to being given everything that she wants. She is a very domineering person who appears to enjoy being the center of attention. She has the mentality of a child who has been spoiled from birth and never been told no. Based upon her reaction to being told no by Elizabeth, Jane Austen implies that this is the first time in her life that Lady Catherine has ever been told no. It is probably the case that she was either the first child and for many years only child, of very lenient parents. (It is also likely that she could be the much younger child/ miracle baby of very lenient parents, but I don't believe this to be true based upon the similarity of age between Ann and Darcy) It makes sense that due to the amount of care she takes of her daughter that Ann was a late in life child. The overprotectiveness and care for her daughter's health added to the fact that no other child was mentioned indicate that Ann was the only child that Lady Catherine was able to have, and as most late in life, children tend to be born early this indicates that she was probably a premature child who labored with her health early on in her life. Having almost lost her child Lady Catherine would be notably protective to the point of overbearingness in ensuring that her child was safe and had only the best in life. It is this more than anything else I believe which led her to insist that her daughter be married to Mr. Darcy because that is what she sees as being the best for her daughter. It also makes sense that a highly thought of and rich lady would want her daughter taken care of by one of the only men she trusted. This is a man she would trust with her estate and money, why not trust him with her daughter. She is really a case of an overprotective mother who is just trying the hardest that she can to ensure that her daughter gets the life she believes she deserves.  
I would like to take a short amount of time to talk about Lady Catherine's daughter Ann. She is a mild and, in many ways, sickly child who grew up into an undersized adult. She has been dominated her entire life by her mother, who though she is only trying to protect her is also stifling any spirit that Ann might have. She probably would have been a very mild-mannered person even if she had been taken out from under the shadow of her mother, I picture someone along the lines of Jane of Kitty, someone who is more of a follower than they are a leader. She is supposed to inherit her mother's estate, and yet she, in the book at least, shows little if any interest in the running of said estate. Some of this might be attributed to the normal expectations for a woman of that era, and the rest of it falls under the classification of someone who is unwilling to do things for themselves if someone else is willing to do it, because they have a constant fear of rocking the boat and causing trouble and conflict. She probably fears her mother as much as she reveres her and wants her mother to be proud of her, and this means that she will do whatever it is that her mom wants her to do.


End file.
